5 ms·

Tinfoil hat: I'm actually on record as speculating that Brexit is just a big currency trading scam. Imagine that you go into Brexit knowing that you will make

Tinfoil hat: I'm actually on record as speculating that Brexit is just a big currency trading scam. Imagine that you go into Brexit knowing that you will make it fail. You spend 2 years sitting on your prosterior, not actually forming a deal and then at the last minute: OMG what are we going to do. The currency bounces around like a yoyo. You time all the nice low points. And then you cancel it saying "Oh we tried our best. Nothing we could have done. The EU was bent on screwing us if we left". The pound jumps 20 or 30 cents on the pound overnight. I will literally fall over if it actually comes to pass, but like I said, this was my somewhat tongue in cheek speculation about 6 months ago (although I predicted that the budget would fail leading to a general election and an opportunity to repeal Brexit at that point, so I'm already technically wrong).

riazrizvi 8y ago
Tinfoil? To imply that the driver for political decisions is financial? I think it’s safe to say there is a financial incentive, that’s how the world works. Is it to drive volatility in the currency markets to help hedge funds? Is it to drive deregulation to help corporations, for example to spy on employees for improved productivity, say? Is it to help restore sovereignty over financial laws to restore british offshore banking, to help launder sanctioned cash, and hide wealthy individuals’ cash, for example? It must be something lucrative, to be so well supported by the Tories despite the harm it is doing to London property prices and London jobs...
- throwaway500mg 8y ago
  Link to Bloomberg investigative piece titled 'The Big Brexit Short': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY
binarymax 8y ago
I speculated this in Feb 2016 as well: https://mobile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/702076334160408576 https://mobile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/7020763341604085... The people rocking the boat were just a bunch of jerks who wanted to get richer. Market destabilization through false rumors and societal disruption is very very real.
- smcl 8y ago
  Is that the right tweet? In this one you're just saying that the GBP dropped by 5p against the dollar, but nothing more.
  - binarymax 8y ago
    Yes. Did you read the whole tweet? I predicted the rate would drop below 1.2 if there was an exit?!
    - smcl 8y ago
      Ah ok, it reads like you claimed your tweet speculates something similar to mikekchar's comment - that it's largely a currency trading scam.
rusk 8y ago
One of the key Brexiteers Jacob Rees Mogg has written the book (literally) on disaster capitalism! [0] (EDIT - my mistake, that's his father, but still). This is why the EU is so eager now to seize control of the timetable, and will now just boot the UK out if they don't shit or get off the pot. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyMuQcWUwAA7gbq.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyMuQcWUwAA7gbq.jpg
- stevesimmons 8y ago
  One correction: the author of that book is Jacob Rees Mogg's father, not JRM himself.
  - kefabean 8y ago
    Your parent could be forgiven, given that Jacob Rees Mogg does appear to hail from his father’s era!
dak1 8y ago
I hope this post is intended as sarcasm, and others interpret as such. There are 650 MPs in Parliament, with vastly different constituencies and agendas. You would need 326 currently elected MPs to be on board with this plan, not even considering the possibility of election results changing those dynamics. And at the beginning of this process it was not clear that the UK could unilaterally rescind Article 50, either, which adds further risks and complications. Not to mention the referendum itself was decided by over 33 million people casting votes. That is a completely impractical collective action problem and a conspiracy theory on par with others like the moon landing or 9/11.
- rusk 8y ago
  > You would need 326 currently elected MPs They don't all have to be "in the loop" for this to work. Some of them just have to be gullible fools and we've seen a lot of that.
- mikekchar 8y ago
  I'm not really serious, but I do slightly wonder. You don't have to really get everybody on board, though. You just have to do such a bad job at negotiating a deal that nobody in their right mind would accept it. I think you might have to have the majority of the cabinet involved, though, so I think your point still stands. Still... Why did Boris Johnson drop out of the leader race when we was practically a shoe in for PM? I think there are some shenanigans going on here and May has a really narrow tightrope to walk to survive...
Angostura 8y ago
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/jacob-rees-mogg-line-huge-personal-windfall-britain-exits-single-market/07/02/ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/jacob-rees-mogg-line-... Surely not
lexs 8y ago
There is a recent Bloomberg story in regards to Nigel Farage and pound shorting during the referendum [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY

riazrizvi 8y ago

Tinfoil? To imply that the driver for political decisions is financial? I think it’s safe to say there is a financial incentive, that’s how the world works. Is it to drive volatility in the currency markets to help hedge funds? Is it to drive deregulation to help corporations, for example to spy on employees for improved productivity, say? Is it to help restore sovereignty over financial laws to restore british offshore banking, to help launder sanctioned cash, and hide wealthy individuals’ cash, for example? It must be something lucrative, to be so well supported by the Tories despite the harm it is doing to London property prices and London jobs...

throwaway500mg 8y ago
Link to Bloomberg investigative piece titled 'The Big Brexit Short': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY

binarymax 8y ago

I speculated this in Feb 2016 as well: https://mobile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/702076334160408576 https://mobile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/7020763341604085... The people rocking the boat were just a bunch of jerks who wanted to get richer. Market destabilization through false rumors and societal disruption is very very real.

smcl 8y ago
Is that the right tweet? In this one you're just saying that the GBP dropped by 5p against the dollar, but nothing more.
- binarymax 8y ago
  Yes. Did you read the whole tweet? I predicted the rate would drop below 1.2 if there was an exit?!
  - smcl 8y ago
    Ah ok, it reads like you claimed your tweet speculates something similar to mikekchar's comment - that it's largely a currency trading scam.

rusk 8y ago

One of the key Brexiteers Jacob Rees Mogg has written the book (literally) on disaster capitalism! [0] (EDIT - my mistake, that's his father, but still). This is why the EU is so eager now to seize control of the timetable, and will now just boot the UK out if they don't shit or get off the pot. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyMuQcWUwAA7gbq.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyMuQcWUwAA7gbq.jpg

stevesimmons 8y ago
One correction: the author of that book is Jacob Rees Mogg's father, not JRM himself.
- kefabean 8y ago
  Your parent could be forgiven, given that Jacob Rees Mogg does appear to hail from his father’s era!

dak1 8y ago

I hope this post is intended as sarcasm, and others interpret as such. There are 650 MPs in Parliament, with vastly different constituencies and agendas. You would need 326 currently elected MPs to be on board with this plan, not even considering the possibility of election results changing those dynamics. And at the beginning of this process it was not clear that the UK could unilaterally rescind Article 50, either, which adds further risks and complications. Not to mention the referendum itself was decided by over 33 million people casting votes. That is a completely impractical collective action problem and a conspiracy theory on par with others like the moon landing or 9/11.

rusk 8y ago
> You would need 326 currently elected MPs They don't all have to be "in the loop" for this to work. Some of them just have to be gullible fools and we've seen a lot of that.
mikekchar 8y ago
I'm not really serious, but I do slightly wonder. You don't have to really get everybody on board, though. You just have to do such a bad job at negotiating a deal that nobody in their right mind would accept it. I think you might have to have the majority of the cabinet involved, though, so I think your point still stands. Still... Why did Boris Johnson drop out of the leader race when we was practically a shoe in for PM? I think there are some shenanigans going on here and May has a really narrow tightrope to walk to survive...

Angostura 8y ago

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/jacob-rees-mogg-line-huge-personal-windfall-britain-exits-single-market/07/02/ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/jacob-rees-mogg-line-... Surely not

lexs 8y ago

There is a recent Bloomberg story in regards to Nigel Farage and pound shorting during the referendum [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY